Hands on review: iPhone OS 3.0 chock full of changes

I could have written "an app for that." She would have gone to a web site and it would say, "Keep looking in that ginormous bag of yours! Your phone is certainly in there, and maybe even Amelia Earhart."

Does anyone know if the A2DP support works on the original EDGE iPhone? I have had some rather nice A2DP headphones for a while now (purchased for a previous not-so-smart phone) and have been hoping to be able to use them again, since I'm sick of the whole fragile-dongle-or-overpriced-crap-earbuds situation.

Everything I've seen online only talks about A2DP with respect to the iPhone 3G. IIRC, the original iPhone's Bluetooth chipset also supports A2DP, but nobody's saying if Apple's actually made that available with OS 3.0. (And no I do not feel like spending $15/month more for a slightly-better device whose data service I would still barely use.)

Originally posted by Egocrata:The oddest thing is that every single feature that is "new" and "cool" (sans iTunes) was available on Windows Mobile phones since 2006 or so. ...

As someone who used Windows Mobile back then, I can say unequivocally that you are talking nonsense here.

For instance both devices browse the Internet, but using whatever crap version of MSIE for mobiles back then with the stylus in a "keyhole" window that displays maybe three words of text and some scroll bars is light years different from using Mobile Safari on the iPhone. There is a BIG difference between "this is technically possible" and "this is useable."

Not wild about the Notes sync. First, I ran into a bug where it kept unchecking the "Sync notes" checkbox, until I unplugged the phone and plugged it back in.

More importantly, it seems to ignore conflicts. So if I edit the same note on the Mac and the iPhone, it's overwriting the phone's changes, without asking me. This even happens if I did my edits on the phone AFTER the edits on the Mac; I would at least expect it to take the most recent version.

Originally posted by Rory_O:Jacqui I <3 the numerous subtle (snarky) references to the minority of people who just can't shut the goddamn fuck up about every little tiny thing that wrongs them personally about the iPhone. I'm sure they're going to keep on posting now about how their concerns were most important.

Its only going to get worse - if the Zune HD uses Tegra, and Tegra has Adobe Flash acceleration, you can bet IE will put a browser on it and talk about how they have flash and Apple doesn't.

Personally I wouldn't want flash on my iPhone, based on Adobe's track record of Flash on Macs.

"What's the point, then, of allowing you to buy movies from the iPhone? The scenario we imagine is being on the WiFi at an airport or hotel, and grabbing your favorite movie before hopping on the plane. If you're like me, though, the airport part of this equation wouldn't come into play, either because your airport(s) don't have WiFi at all or because the prices are outrageous."

Could you hook up to a laptop and tether in order to download >10 MB files into iTunes and then sync (assuming you have you laptop and tethering is a possiblity for you)? Not the most elegant solution, but might work if you are stuck in a wifi-less airport.

Originally posted by OrangeCream:It's why we read Ars. It also helps that Ars has had access to iPhone OS 3.0 since March, despite being beta.

We had access to 3.0 for approximately 5 days.

But you also had a working set of data, ie expectations and information, from the very first beta.

Or are you saying no outside information was allowed and every feature and item reviewed was done through fresh eyes?

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They started one and haven't finished it yet.

Stokes is the only person who got a Pre and he's got all his other duties, but I know he's working on it.

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Ars only had a week with the Pre but had iPhone OS 3 for three months.

What makes you think we had 3.0 for three months?

You knew ahead of time of features such as battery life, Safari improvements, push notification, SDK improvements, Spotlight search, landscape keyboard, and a host of other things that you didn't have to discover, research, and investigate.

Therefore making any review easier.

I do this kind of thing for a living, "reviews" take a lot less time if you know what to expect, as opposed to being surprised with a brand new implementation.

Has the multiple email account interface been fixed yet? Switching back and forth between email accounts is a bit annoying. A "universal" inbox would be great.

The 30-second rewind in podcasts is nice but how about a 30-second skip? Lots of times there are segments that I don't want to listen to but precisely navigating a long podcast with the finger is very tricky.

Also, why does the "force your iPhone to make a sound" require MobileMe? Why can't you just send a specially crafted text or email to your phone?

"Though the wording used on the buttons doesn't indicate as much, we found that searching by "All" also searched the body of the messages in your inbox."

This does not work for me. A search in Mail will not find hits that are only in the body of the message, not the subject or addressees. I have tested it on an Exchange account, a mobile.me account, and a gmail account.

On my first generation iPhone the search for "All" doesn't seem to find anything in the body of the email. Only the To, From, and Subject show up. This differs from the review which said that "All" searched the body of the email. Thus, either the 1st generation iPhone doesn't support this feature, or there is something "wrong" in the way I'm testing this feature, or the review is wrong. Frankly, I suspect the latter, you may have just been getting matches to To/From/Subject which you didn't expect and thus concluded that the search was happening in the body of the email.

I'd have like to have seen a comprehensive Ars A2DP test since this is a big feature for a lot of people, especially as the iPhone is a major music device and is replacing the iPod for a lot of people.Also, I guess there are no push notification apps out there yet to test?

On a bug fix note: How about the YouTube app over 802.11g, have they fixed the problem where it would get stuck buffering halfway through?

We cannot fathom why one would want to delete an individual message instead of clearing an entire log unless that person is having an affair or sneaking around their parents. But hey, we don't judge.

If one text had some useful information that you wanted to keep for reference, but the rest of the conversation was ephemeral, I could see wanting to get rid of the clutter to make it easier find later on.

Thank god for the landscape mode. One of the most hated things about my iPod Touch. I can't stand using the portrait keyboard. Now whether that is worth the 10 bucks for me, I don't know. I don't thing anything else that they offer really makes me want to pay for it. I don't want to download DRM infested videos. Copy and paste is useless to me. Is there anything really that good that I may have missed to justify the 10 bucks for iPod Touch users?

Originally posted by glamajamma:Wow that was a fast turn around on an iPhone review.

Pretty comprehensive too.

I noticed ARS still has not done a review of the Palm Pre...Actually all their reporting on the Palm Pre has been absolutely anemic and a majority of it negative rumoring.Why the silence ARS?

Maybe it's because iPhone OS 3.0 has been available to developers for quite a while? That means that Ars has had a long time to prepare the review but has not been allowed to publish it until the final cunsumer release because of an NDA. Just guessing though ...

Originally posted by logic_88:The 30-second rewind in podcasts is nice but how about a 30-second skip? Lots of times there are segments that I don't want to listen to but precisely navigating a long podcast with the finger is very tricky.

If you tap the header of the podcast to reveal the scrubber bar, if you start scrubbing then pull your finger lower down the screen the scrubbing speed will slow down - you can be really very precise, even on long podcasts.

Still unable to update due to Apple authentication issues (see the thread in the Ach for more info on this).

I will say, one thing I've read about with the Pre that I really like is apparently Palm can "push" updates to the unit via the cellular network. That would certainly help in a case like this: The end user could visit a web page where they opt for the update, then Apple schedules the "push" in rolling waves to reduce bandwidth issues. Might mean you'd have to wait a few days to get your chance to "upgrade," but it'd be better than sitting here looking at an error message.

From the article:That leaves the WiFi at a hotel (or at home), where you could easily download the same show on your computer and transfer it to your iPhone.

What about at the office (for downloading movies for the train or bus ride), or at friends' houses (where you don't have your own computer handy). I can think of several situations where this would be useful – even if I can't buy anything other than music in the danish iTunes Store.

What's the point, then, of allowing you to buy movies from the iPhone? The scenario we imagine is being on the WiFi at an airport or hotel, and grabbing your favorite movie before hopping on the plane. If you're like me, though, the airport part of this equation wouldn't come into play, either because your airport(s) don't have WiFi at all or because the prices are outrageous.

Even if you have WiFi in an airport for free (LAS), the speeds aren't that great. Maybe download a 30 minute TV episode, but not a 2 hr movie.

Originally posted by OrangeCream:But you also had a working set of data, ie expectations and information, from the very first beta.

Or are you saying no outside information was allowed and every feature and item reviewed was done through fresh eyes?

The review wasn't thought about or even considered by anyone until we actually had the firmware a few days ago. So yes.

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You knew ahead of time of features such as battery life, Safari improvements, push notification, SDK improvements, Spotlight search, landscape keyboard, and a host of other things that you didn't have to discover, research, and investigate.

So what? knowing what's theoretically in the release means nothing until you can actually use it.

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I do this kind of thing for a living, "reviews" take a lot less time if you know what to expect, as opposed to being surprised with a brand new implementation.

I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make here. Jacqui turned around this exceptionally good review in an exceptionally short amount of time. I personally think its the best hands-on 3.0 review I've read today.

Originally posted by Jeppe Utzon:Maybe it's because iPhone OS 3.0 has been available to developers for quite a while? That means that Ars has had a long time to prepare the review but has not been allowed to publish it until the final cunsumer release because of an NDA. Just guessing though ...

No, Jacqui did not start using or writing this review until a few days ago.

skip/ff/next/back/etc commands for A2DP are not part of the standard in reference to communicating with the iPod app. It IS supported by Apple, but the device makers may need to update their firmware (highly unlikely for existing A2DP devices like your car stereo) in order to support it. If you want A2DP support, you should check with the maker of the device BEFORE you buy it to see what their level of support for the iPhone is specifically in these areas.

It should also be noted that volume controlls on the phone are not active in A2DP, so you'll either need to use your stereo volume, or be lucky enough for your A2DP device to support it.

It should be noted this is NOT Apple's limited deployement of A2DP, but simply the lack of standards applied.

A2DP does not exist in the original iPhone, the chipset is incapable of it, only 3G and 3GS.

Also, you can't be paired to your car for playback and a headset for calls at the same time... it's one or the other.

Orangecream, please just enjoy your Product reviews. Clintology, just relax man-it's all good. Ars has the best forums on the internet. You are however pushing Apple. Let it be and let's all enjoy what we get from the site.

I can't believe you left out the CalDAV implementation. It's not as smooth as it should be, but it's there. I'd expect the settings to sync to the phone, but instead CalDAV accounts in iCal are synced as static calendars. If you want the full CalDAV experience you have to add the CalDAV account on the iPhone (Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars->Add Account...->Other->Add CalDAV Account). Once that's done, though, it works almost exactly the way it's supposed to. You can create or edit events in a CalDAV calendar and the changes automatically propagate to the server and thence to other clients.